As is well known to those versed in the art, the provision of a black border bounding a photograph has presented many problems and difficult procedures. Primarily, black borders were provided by enlarging the opening in the negative carrier of the enlarger, to thereby expose the area around the image. This presented problems in controlling the border width, and made cropping extremely difficult if possible at all. While the use of an easel with movable framing members made possible the provision of a black border, this procedure was tedius and time consuming.
Applicant's assignee has experimented with and distributed a device since February 1978 for printing borders on photo prints. This device included an outer mask of closed outline configuration made of a magnetic material and had a central opening. The central opening of the device was dimensioned and shaped to expose an initially uncovered region of a light sensitive printing sheet on which the outer mask was placed. An inner mask was provided and receivable within the outer mask opening to cover the central portion of the initially uncovered region and expose a finally uncovered region bounding the initially uncovered region.
However, the device distributed by applicant's assignee had a number of problems which rendered the same unsuitable for the intended use. Firstly, the inner masks, in most cases, were not totally opaque, but had pinholes therein. This resulted in spotting of the image areas during formation of the borders. Also, the corners of a transparent bounding portion provided on the inner mask did not normally match the corners of the outer mask thereby producing gaps or spaces therebetween. This resulted in a shadowing effect along the borders formed by light passing through the transparent bounding portions and directly through the gaps or spaces. Associated with this problem was the additional difficulty of maintaining uniform width transparent bounding portions, this resulting in the formation of undesirable nonuniform borders.